Intertwined
by Little Sakura-chan
Summary: Their fates are forever intertwined. In some ways, he wishes it weren't so. Because society would never approve.
1. Chapter 1

**Beginning Note:** So Libba Bray's _Gemma Doyle Trilogy_ has been a favorite of mine for several years. It is only now that I have been inspired enough to write short piece for the series. This is the first chapter of three in a very short story from Kartik's point of view, from each book. I hope you enjoy them!

**Disclaimer:** These characters are the property of Libba Bray. Any mistakes are mine and wholly unintended.

Intertwined

_Part 1_

I stared at the ceiling of my thin, threadbare tent, trying to fall asleep. Usually the crackling of the Gypsies' fire and the hum of their native tongue lulled me to sleep, but sleep seemed determined to pass me by. I closed my eyes, trying one more time to slip into sweet dreamlessness. Again, she came into my thoughts. With a sigh, I sat up and rubbed the heel of my palms against my eyes. It was clear that sleep wasn't coming anytime soon.

I could still feel her lips pressed sweetly against mine, tasting of honey and boldness. I touched my still kiss-swollen lips with calloused fingers. I hadn't been able to help myself when the urge to deepen our kiss overtook me. A kiss that shouldn't have happened. A kiss that would never be accepted by anyone in her world or mine.

I sighed again and pulled on my rough boots and homespun shirt. Maybe a walk would clear my head, especially around the lake. It was a peaceful place where I could gather my thoughts in silence.

The Gypsies gathered around the fire looked up as I emerged from my borrowed tent. I offered them a tentative smile and a slight nod. Ithal nodded back before returning his attention back to the wizened storyteller next to the blaze. I wound my way through the camp, mind unsettled. I was grateful that the Gypsies had taken me in when I had nothing and no one. And it did make it easier to keep an eye on the girl and her three overly curious friends.

Lost in my own thoughts, I was startled by a thin, wavering voice that came from the trees.

"Carolina? Don't hide from me so!"

"Mother Elena?"

"Carolina?"

I walked towards the voice and found the aging Gypsy fortuneteller by a copse of trees that were still trying to cling to their last leaves.

"Mother Elena, what are you doing out here this late?" I asked the poor, fragile lady, hoping she would snap to lucidity. She made me nervous sometimes when she was submerged in her madness.

"I am searching for my Carolina," the woman said. "Have you seen her?"

I shook my head.

"No, but I'm sure she will find her way back soon," I said, taking hold of the old woman's arm, feeling sorry for her. "Let's take you back to your tent where it's warm."

The fractured woman allowed me to lead her back to her dwelling, where she sat on a cushion and shuffled a deck of battered tarot cards on a small wooden table. I eyed the cards nervously.

"Young Kartik, the cards are calling you," Mother Elena said, waving her hand at the well-worn cards.

"Well, I would rather –" I began, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I already knew my destiny. It was to prevent the girl from continuing her reckless trips into the realms, and finally secure my place in the Brotherhood of the Rakshana. That's what I wanted. I didn't want the old woman to tell me any differently.

"Come. Sit," she said, beckoning for me to take the cushion across from her.

Hesitantly, I sat down, sweat beading on my forehead and upper lip, despite the chill in the air. I watched with growing apprehension as Mother Elena shuffled and arranged her cards. A slight frown appeared on her face and I swallowed hard.

"Your path is not an easy one, Brother Kartik." I blinked in surprise at the use of my Rakshana name. "The path you journey on is dangerous. You will be tested in your loyalties to many different parties. Your enemies are great and powerful and familiar. Your heart will break, but will be mended. And the girl with the fire hair…"

Mother Elena paused, a quick smile flitting across her face, and I sat up, listening intently to how my destiny was entangled with the beautiful and intriguing girl that had wandered into camp earlier seeking a fortune from the very lady before me.

"The girl with the fire hair is a mystery to you. You wish you could easily place her as you do others, but it is impossible. You resent her for the tragedy of your brother. You fear her and your feelings for her. Don't. Fear will drive her away and she is deeply entwined in your fate. You will be a great hero and you will be the one to save her. But do not be afraid to make sacrifices. Don't fear the choices you will make. And do not me afraid of love. It is what makes life beautiful. Do not be afraid to love her."

The old woman stopped and blinked rapidly. She suddenly became aware of where she was, and looked at me, a lopsided, crazy smile on her lips.

"My Mary came to visit me today," she said unexpectedly. I just nodded, not sure whom she was talking about. "It had been so long. But she did not have Sarah with her. Sarah has taught Carolina naughty things like hiding. She's a dark one, that girl. Always wanting to know about the dark and its secrets." Mother Elena shook her head, the movement making the bangles at her wrists clack together with a metallic ring. "Mary had a timid, broken girl with scars inside and out and a ferocious, broken girl with hair like corn silk. But Mary was the same, green eyes and all."

_Green eyes,_ I thought. _She must mean-_

"Are you here for a reading?" Mother Elena asked all of a sudden as if seeing me for the first time. She went to shuffle her tarot cards and frowned down at them. "I don't remember taking these out. Carolina, are you playing tricks? She loves tricks, my Carolina."

"I'm fine, Mother," I said, mind ready to burst with what the sometimes feebleminded woman had said. "Goodnight."

I left her muttering to herself and reshuffling the battered deck.

Only a few of the Gypsies were still gathered around the fire by the time I got back to my tent. I let Ithal know that I had found Mother Elena wandering in the woods and where. He thanked me in Romani and said someone would keep an eye out for her, even though the woman's wanderings were frequent. I entered my tent and prepared myself for sleep again, slipping off my boots and shirt, my mind still processing everything the Gypsy fortuneteller had said. She had told me that the girl, Miss Gemma Doyle, was deeply entwined in my destiny. I probably should have realized this earlier. With the Rakshana finally finding a path back to the realms, she would be deeply ingrained in my life.

And she had told me not to be afraid to love her. Love. I shivered at the thought of it, despite the heavy wool blanket that was over me to keep the night's chill awake. Love was a strong and powerful word and emotion. Did I really love the girl holed up in the formidable academy on the rolling hills? She certainly frustrated me with her lack of caution, but she drew me in with the innocence and trust that was always reflected in her hauntingly green eyes. I didn't think that I loved her, but maybe one day I would.

Sleep finally overtook me a few moments later and I slipped peacefully into dreaming of a garden that was nothing like I had ever seen, a beautiful temple that emitted colorful smoke, a circle etched on a wall, and the peals of laughter of a girl with hair the color of fire.

**A/N: Please enjoy this story. I hope I did one of my favorite characters justice. Please read and review and ignore any plot holes. My brain doesn't work late at night.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Beginning Note:** So here I finally am with another chapter… Took me long enough. Well, here is another chapter of our beloved Kartik!

_Part II_

'Your destiny is joined to mine,' she whispers, voice floating along the howling wind.

She stands in front of me in her white school uniform. I am close enough to smell her. She smells like home. Like India.

She coughs suddenly, drops of blood spraying from her lips, the color of rubies.

'Kartik," she moans, hands tightly gripping mine, nails digging into my flesh. 'How could you?'

Blood slides down her chin and I stare into her startling green eyes. They are lined in pain. Confused, I look down our clenched hands and feel all the blood drain out of my face.

My hands are gripping a dagger that is buried to the hilt in her stomach. A spreading stain mars her virginal uniform, a splash of red on a field of white. I look up again, horrified, for the dagger is my own, a small sharp blade topped with an effigy of Megh Sambara, a protector against enemies.

Her pale green eyes pierce me through as I drop the bloody dagger to the dirt. She slumps forward, forcing me to catch her, allowing me to hold her, a forbidden act.

Her silken red curls glide against me cheek as she leans her face towards mine.

'I thought I was yours,' she says, her lips brushing the shell of my ear, causing goosebumps to ripple across my flesh and desire to course through my veins. 'How could you kill me?'

Her words were no more than a breath, labored, soft, and laced with pain.

'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Please don't die. I did not mean to kill you!'

She doesn't respond as she breathes her last breath, her life slipping away in my arms. I feel her heart stop beating and I let out a yell, full of regret. I sink to the ground and bury my face in the silk of her hair.

'I'm sorry,' I whisper again to a girl who can no longer hear me. Whose brilliant eyes are empty with death. 'I had no choice. Forgive me.'

I bolt upright in my rented room, my thin shirt sticking to the cold sweat on my body. My breathing is heavy as if I've just run a long distance.

_It was just a dream_, I tell myself.

Problem is, I believe in dreams.

At that thought, my stomach turns and I barely make it to the sink without throwing up my meager dinner. I rinse my mouth out with water from a pitcher after I finish retching helplessly.

I sit down on the cheap cot that occupies most of the space in the dingy room at the pack of the pub. Loud, obnoxious laughter breaks through the quiet, but then again, it is rarely quiet here.

I rub the heel of my palms in my eyes against the burning sensation that I know to be me fighting tears.

This dream scares me.

The Rakshana have ordered me to kill the girl that haunts my every dream and every thought. She is the keeper of the Realms, the very thing the brotherhood wishes to possess. A place where dreams are reality and magic is at your fingertips.

Last year, I was supposed to keep on eye on the girl and her overly curious friends and failed, shaming myself as Rakshana. I had vowed to do better until they gave me my task. I was to kill the girl with hair like fire and eyes the color of sea foam.

A girl that both intrigued me and frustrated me all at once. The girl I had grown to care about as a friend and possibly something more. Mother Elena told me to not be afraid to love. But everything I had ever loved was always ripped away from me, like Amar.

I lie back down on the cot and stare at the dirty and cracked plaster on the ceiling, thinking. There was no way I could keep my secret from her for very long. It would eat me up inside, lying to her. She trusted me too much when she shouldn't trust me at all. She was constantly testing her boundaries. With the Realms. With me. The slight smile that always graced her full, pink lips drove me mad.

How could I betray her? I didn't know if I could, but how could the Rakshana expect me too? If I admitted it to myself, I knew they wanted me to kill her because they saw what I fervently had been denying. It was impossible anyway, these growing feelings. She was rich and I was her family's coach driver. She was a girl of class and I was just the youngest son of a merchant. She was English and I was an Indian.

I rolled over and punched the lumpy pillow out of frustration, a familiar pricking behind my eyes. I would no longer deny my tears.

So for the first time in many years, I start to cry. I cry for what I've lost. Amar, Mata, India. And I cry for everything I could lose. My place with the Rakshana, a place where I belong, my life, and above all, her.

Her long copper hair, her freckles, her full, tantalizing lips, her wit and her laugh. And those beautiful and haunting eyes. To never gaze at her face again, to never argue with her, or to never be in her presence are what I fear the most.

As I cry, I let her name roll of my tongue, sweet like the summer rain. It's no more than a whisper, spoken like a prayer, and all I am allowed to possess.

"Gemma," I sigh into the night air.

And again I cry for what I cannot have, Mother Elena's warnings about not being afraid to love mocking me.

Love.

What is the point of love when you cannot protect what you hold dear? Taking deep, quavering breaths, I slow my tears and steel myself for the task ahead; praying I won't have to do what is expected of me.

Love was all I had left. If it could not dace the both of us, then we were doomed.

**A/N: Mata means mother in Hindi. I hope you enjoy the second installment. I would really enjoy sleeping since it is 4am on my side of the planet. Leave me love!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Beginning Note:** Another chapter! It'll be nice to have another story finished. I'm trying my hardest to finish everything else. I finally had my inspiration to finish Part III. I hope you enjoy it and thank you all for reading and reviewing. My readers are what keep me writing! Love you all!

**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to Libba Bray. In this part, I did use dialogue straight from the book; else it wouldn't have worked otherwise. I beg everyone's humble forgiveness and tried to use as little as possible.

_Part III_

The minute Amar stabs her, time freezes and my world shatters, my hope fragmented like a broken mirror.

In the pieces, I see everything that was, that could be, and could have been. She falls against the Tree of All Souls, cradled by its heavy roots.

"Gemma!" I cry, felling the Winterlands creature I was fighting and racing to her side.

She is pale, her freckles standing out and sweat and tears cutting trails though the streaks of blood and dirt on her face. I am afraid to touch her, to hurt her more or have her blood spill and complete the sacrifice. She is still alive, but barely. Her breathing is shallow and her lips move slightly as if she's speaking to someone.

"Gemma, Gemma," I call to her, willing the magic of the Realms to return the girl I love to me. "Please, Gemma. Don't leave me. Not yet."

She moved suddenly, coughing my name. I choke back tears, telling her not to move. It pains me to watch her push the dagger fully into her side.

Without warning, the Tree of All Souls splits and spills its magic into me. It fills me, tearing me into pieces, ripping me raw with its power. I collapse onto the cold ground, breathing heavily and feeling strange. I feel powerful and dark as I struggle to my feet. I look at my hands and discover that I'm radiating a golden light.

"Kartik!" she cries, ghost green eyes wide with fear and determination.

She reaches out a crimson hand to me and blood drips from her thin, trembling fingers onto the ground, rousing a cry of glee from the Winterlands creatures. The giant tree begins to move eagerly, twining its roots around Gemma's legs like a cat. My fire-haired lover struggles against the creeping roots and her friends and Fowlson race to free her. It is not dead like we had hoped.

I turn my attention to the creature that used to be my brother.

"I told you that you would bring her to us, Brother. That you would be the death of her," he tells me, seeming saddened at what was going on around him.

I won't let her die, not here. And I won't let what is left of my older brother suffer anymore. He does not want to be a monster. I can see it in the shifting white-blue of his eyes. With a yell, I plunge his sword straight into his chest, releasing him. He lets out a wounded scream and is gone.

I turn to smile at the girl I think I've always known I loved. I knew what I had to do the minute the tree's magic entered my body, maybe even before that. I place my shining hands against her bleeding side, letting the magic of the tree and the Realms intertwine and heal. She shakes her head wildly. She sees. She knows what I mean to do.

"No," she whispers violently and desperately, red curls a tangled mess.

She couldn't look more beautiful to me. She looks like Kali the Destroyer, fierce, proud, and deadly. Ready to crush bone and let blood run. She tries to pull away but I won't let her. Not when we have no time left. If I am to do what I plan, I want the feeling of her to be what I carry with me forever. To be the last thing I ever remember.

"The debt must be paid," I tell her, at peace with my decision. "And you are needed in the world. I've waited my whole life to feel a sense of purpose. To know my place. I feel it now."

She begins to cry, sliver tears coursing down her sun-blessed cheeks. It's too soon for the both of us. We didn't even get a chance to explore what we could have been. She has always been the perfect fit for me despite all of our differences and difficulties. It was all of that which made me love her all the more.

"Now I know my destiny."

"What is it?" she asks, voice thick and sad with her tears.

"This," I whisper and pull her flush against me.

I kiss her with everything that I am, placing all my love and hope into our last embrace. All of me wishes I could stay. Stay and watch her hair turn silver with age. Watch our children, dark-haired, caramel-skinned, and green-eyed, run through the hot fields of India. She's crying harder, telling me the roots have let her go. I smile.

I feel them claiming me instead and my body becomes rigid. I cannot suppress the small cry of pain that escapes me as they dig into my body. My blood pounds in my ears, keeping time with the tree's heartbeat. I am sorry that I cannot stay and give her the future she wants with me. Her friends try to pull her away from me, but she rips free, running to me. She says she wishes she can undo it.

"There is never turning back, Gemma," I tell her, voice soft and full of love. Her beautiful green eyes leak more crystalline tears, making them shine like the ocean. "You have to go forward. Make the future yours."

I kiss her sweetly one last time, feeling the tree steal my life away. She kisses me back fiercely as the tree wraps its vines around my throat. The last thing I do is breathe out her name, giving her all of my desire in one word.

I can still hear her, feel her kiss. I sense her release the magic she holds back into the last. It strengthens my rooms and her power floods into me.

_That's my girl_, I think proudly as she falls to the ground and sobs at the base of me, calling my name softly as if it's a prayer.

Time passes, how much I am unsure, but I feel her again, her smooth cheek against me and her burning tears wetting the bark. I feel her arms tighten around me in an embrace, one that I long to return but cannot. I whisper her name on the breeze and smile, even though she cannot see me, when I feel her lips against the bark.

I won't ever leave her. I will be here and in her dreams, waiting until I can take her into my arms again and kiss her.

I sigh her name softly one last time before falling deep into myself.

"Gemma…"

**A/N: I hope you've enjoyed **_**Intertwined**_**! I know that I've enjoyed writing it. I like writing from Kartik's POV because you don't really get to see what he's thinking. Half the time, I feel like you're thinking he's a jerk because of the way he acts. But I love Kartik and definitely cried hysterically when he "died." I thought about staging a protest, but really. What good would that do? Thanks for sticking by me! Leave me LOTS of love!**


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